Fun Home

When: Oct. 25-30 2016

TUESDAY,OCTOBER 25–SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30

FUN HOME

Dykes to Watch Out For, a comic strip about a group of lesbians and their friends in the Twin Cities, racked up a generation's worth of snarky social commentary and, in the bargain, gave us "the Bechdel test," a new measuring tool for gender inequity in the arts. Then cartoonist Alison Bechdel went fully autobiographical in the 2006 graphic novel Fun Home, a memoir of her childhood and adolescent struggles with her sexual identity—and her gradual realization that her tyrannical, transfixing father, who runs the funeral home where the family lives, was facing similar issues. It took playwright Lisa Kron and composer Jeanine Tesori six years to make a musical of it. The result closed last month after a year and a half on Broadway and a quintet of Tony Awards, including best musical. The touring version should be fresh; it began just three weeks ago, and Durham is its second stop. —Byron Woods